Political Quotes

“I thought I would take a few moments to share the contents of this amendment and why it is an important addition to the bill we are considering currently. This is related to a very critical part of Oregon's economy; that is, timber and forest jobs. Forest jobs have long been a pillar of our rural economy in my State. In fact, my father worked as a millwright when he first came to Oregon. He worked as a mechanic, which was basically to keep the sawmill operating. When the sawmill shut down, he pursued other jobs as a mechanic. We traveled with the timber economy, as so many families in Oregon did. Many of our rural towns are mill towns--towns closely related to the production of lumber from our national forests and from private forests. Over the past several decades, times have been pretty tough in the timber economy, and we have many forest workers who have suffered through these tough times. Their families have gone with the ups and downs of the timber economy. Certainly, the recession added insult to injury, and the unemployment rates in many of our timber counties soared and have been stuck at over 15 percent. That is why in 2009 I and others fought to get funding in the recovery bill to expand thinning and wildfire prevention. The concept was that we have millions of acres of overgrown second-growth forests which is not ideal for ecosystems, and it is not ideal for producing timber. What it is ideal for is forest fires and disease.…”